by Geoffrey Aitken
disturbingly,
starlight is displaced
Tag: Words
The Diner
by Josh Young
The bacon and hashbrowns sizzled. The dishes
and forks in the sink bickered with each other as
they were carelessly dropped in a soapy bath.
The fluorescent lights pummeled my eyes in
sharp contrast to the outside where rain drizzled
in the dreary night.
3 poems
On Getting Dressed and Getting Coffee
by Charlotte Deason Robillard
Getting dressed
When I was somewhere around age 8 or 9 – still homeschooled, living in rural Alabama, and mostly wearing thrift store clothes and hand-me-downs from my cousin – I meticulously put together an outfit I was proud of. Basing my vision off of whatever snippets of pop culture I’d been exposed to – Nickelodeon on the cable TV at my grandmother’s house, my best friend’s occasional copies of Tiger Beat – I pulled together a study in plum: purple jean shorts, a purple paisley oversized t-shirt, and a purple-hued tapestry vest. Since I didn’t go to school and I couldn’t wear jean shorts to church, the only obvious place to debut my outfit was homeschool day at the local roller skating rink. Despite my general lack of athletic ability, I was pretty good at skating, and I was excited to cruise around the rink in my fly new ‘fit. But my outfit was too avant-garde for the Pelham, Alabama homeschool crowd, and I soon had my first experience of bullying. Two girls (who I envision in the bland but popular Umbros and Hard Rock Cafe t-shirts of the era) shoved me and snickered about my clothes as they whizzed by me in a fit of giggles. I don’t remember what they said, but I remember being hurt and confused. I was the one who was dressed cool, right? I had seen vests and oversized t-shirts on TV, and I’d so carefully paired each color and pattern. This was my first introduction to conformity, and while my feelings were hurt, my taste for getting dressed up had not been stifled.
Read More »i should write a poem about pretending to be a british fighter pilot during the battle of britain
The Last Time
by Louis Faber
The last time we spoke
his voice was thinner as if
it knew the end was approaching,
when it would be forever silenced
even if he had no idea it was happening.
Courtesy Never Dies
by P. A. Farrell
No one told me I would be using a walker, hunched over those curved aluminum handles and hoping the brakes on the wheels would hold, but that’s life. You never know what it’s going to throw at you, and you’ve got to be ready to catch it with both hands and draw it toward your chest so it doesn’t fall to the floor. But today, the bus jostled, slamming me into a pole. A man sneered at me, “They shouldn’t let people like you on the bus!” Yeah, people like me, with walkers.
A slow slog from the bus stop sends stabs of pain to my ankle, but I push on. Good thing my folding friend has wheels. I don’t think I could pick it up. Each slab of the sidewalk is daring me forward. The beast is waiting, and I’ve got to gather my strength, so I take it slow to save my breath and prepare.
Read More »2 poems
by Stacie Eirich
Read More »It beckons with promise
with something
bittersweet, something
that could break my heart.
Entrancing a New Season
by Chris Wardle
Praising, rising, raising
the spectral shimmering
of this wavering twilight,
misty thunderstorm remnants
lift reality’s fading vision
of a whole field moving
obscured, yearning
learning to dance, entranced
by this one evening’s mystical turning.
Concord Purple on the Sunrise
by Pran Phucharoenyos
The thunderhead is willing to break any and all windows because there’s no insurance around, and still, I take a blue car out West. The way I brought myself down to California— you would have been proud.
I leave Enchanted Wells adjacent to Rainbow Blvd and across from Wishing Coin Road and other counterfeit fairytale worlds Nevadan roads titled themselves after. The Santa Ana reports here that this boulevard I’m residing in contains steamed rainbows from kitchen sink dishwashers and the youthful and overly sentimental scent of a clean glass picked up from the cabinet reminds me to bring water when I leave to lie flat on backyard artificial grass as if I’m in wait for a high danger surgery as the southwest sticks on my sunscreened legs.
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